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As Gambling911.com Special Contributor Greg Tingle was among the first to report last week, Australia’s Crown Casino has come under increasing fire for allowing drunken gamblers and fighting on its premises. Gamblers were actually permitted to urinate on machines and fights often spilled out onto the streets.
A recent study featuring interviews with 225 current and former Crown casino staff, concluded that some gamblers sat at poker machines for up to 24 hours with one employee claiming they “will sit there and just wee, go to the toilet at the machine”.
Crown bosses have gone on the offensive.
Gary O’Neill, Spokesperson for Crown Casino, asserted that the claims were “all false” and did not deserve to be mentioned as part of the study.
“Crown absolutely denies that staff are encouraged or allowed to permit patrons to gamble while intoxicated,” he said.
The study was undertaken by Deakin University researchers, led by Associate Professor Linda Hancock.
Other findings allege that the casino refused to call ambulances for injured patrons, opting instead to send them home (or to the hospital) in taxis and covered up dozens of fights per night with an average of 40 individuals escorted out from the premises. Employees claim that bottles and knives were often used as weapons during said fights.
20 percent of staff said they felt unsafe while working at the casino while nearly three-quarters claimed that those gamblers escorted out from the premises could have been a danger to individuals on the street.
Another troubling assertion: Many of those staff members interviewed claim they would not intervene during gambling binges and fights.
Not to be outdone and perhaps adding some credence to the idea that fights were commonplace on the Crown Casino premises, Mr. O’Neill stated that “ambulances were regularly called to Crown”.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
